by Reilly Baum
Perhaps best known for their Marxist critique of contemporary Western culture, Adorno and Horkheimer put forth a compelling account of the way in which culture and art under capitalism become homogenised products created for profit. These products are used to fulfil a mass desire for consumption— a desire which is manufactured by the culture industry itself. I shall first explain Adorno and Horkheimer’s vision of the culture industry, before arguing that fanfiction is a ‘participatory culture’ and potential method for recovering some creative and cultural autonomy from the intangible, all-encompassing machinery of the culture industry.
The Culture Industry
For Adorno and Horkheimer, the culture industry is the logical conclusion of the capitalist mode of production. The culture industry is, then, a series of processes centred around industrialisation and standardisation, as they stand applied to the creation of art. This results in a “ruthless unity” of culture, media, and art.[i] Media is produced for consumption under the guise of fulfilling consumer desires– “marketability becomes a total demand…”[ii] Adorno and Horkheimer contend that the culture industry manufactures desire by positioning individuals as consumers before fulfilling that desire for the sole purpose of ever-increasing profit: “It is claimed that the standards were based in the first place on consumers’ needs… The result is the circle of manipulation and retroactive need in which the unity of the system grows ever stronger.”[iii] Cultural artefacts become vacuous products which reflect only the barest pretence of art. Adorno and Horkheimer argue: “Movies and radio need no longer pretend to be art…. They are just business… made into an ideology.”[iv] The creation of art becomes a standardised process of mass production, akin to factory assembly lines. The culture industry thus operates within the whole of capitalism, whereby, “The dependence of… the motion picture industry on the banks, is characteristic of the whole sphere, whose individual branches are themselves economically interwoven.”[v] By marketing the products of the culture industry as reprieve from the drudgery of work, leisure time is itself manufactured through repetition. As Adorno and Horkheimer argue,
by occupying men’s [sic] senses from the time they leave the factory in the evening to the time they clock in again the next morning with matter that bears the impress of the labour process they themselves have to sustain throughout the day.[vi]
This occurs in all forms of media, from social media (which is dominated by product and lifestyle advertising) to film and television (Marvel movies, Star Wars spin offs, etc.), and from radio to novels.
High and Low Art
For Adorno and Horkheimer, however, art under the culture industry is not a wholly pessimistic fate. High art offers some potential for redemption, and, as I shall argue, mass (or ‘low’) art may pose some redemptive aspects as well. For Adorno and Horkheimer, so-called ‘high’ art, such as expressionist music and literature, is free from the pressures of sustaining a material existence through work. High art is thus withheld from the working class, and it is this separation that gives low art its “semblance of legitimacy.”[vii] However, ‘low’ (or mass) art, created by the masses and critical of the bourgeoisie’s idealist tendencies, is nevertheless reintegrated into the culture industry itself. Any dissatisfaction with the empty representations manufactured by the culture industry is quickly dealt with: rebellion and spontaneity are accounted for by the culture industry and thus subsumed back into it. ‘Alternative’ media is allowed to exist insofar as the consumer believes he is consuming something outside of the mainstream. Realistically, ‘alternative’ media is another product of an industry which accounts for ‘subversive’ tastes. Indeed, “anyone who resists can only survive by fitting in. Once his particular brand of deviation from the norm has been noted by the industry, he belongs to it.”[viii] The very mechanisms of the culture industry, such as talent scouts and production companies, embody this tendency, identifying and absorbing any spontaneity within the “ruthless unity.”[ix] This process is partially enabled by the consumers themselves. The culture industry markets a specific kind of success as achievable to the masses, who then pursue those avenues for ‘success’ and channel any alternative interests in such a way that they are once again integrated. As such, success itself becomes a process of subsumption through the channelling of desires, which are then reintegrated back into the culture industry. As Adorno and Horkheimer write: “The deceived masses are today captivated by the myths of success even more than the successful are. Immovably, they insist on the very ideology which enslaves them.”[x] The culture industry works to integrate subversive ideas into the unity of the culture industry itself.
Amusement and Tragedy
This process of subsumption can also be extended to the different genres of media produced by the culture industry, which, according to Adorno and Horkheimer, can be divided into two categories: amusement[xi] (being media produced for no purpose but entertainment) and tragedy[xii] (media designed to reflect a degree of listlessness, to further convince the consumer of their position). The standardised processes by which amusement media is manufactured, marketed, and distributed, are, as Adorno and Horkheimer posit, “inevitably after-images of the work process itself…”[xiii] wherein “amusement itself becomes an ideal…”[xiv] Amusement media is thus desired as a reprieve from work, despite being a representation of work itself.
Tragedy is similarly subsumed under the culture industry as an “institution for moral improvement.”[xv] By representing a flattened version of true tragedy, the culture industry invites consumers to revel in the truth that life is difficult, and therefore so much more fulfilling.[xvi] The consumer recognises in tragedy their own inevitable defeat and succumbs to it, transmuting potentially subversive desires into the energy to work another day. As Adorno and Horkheimer argue, “In films, those permanently desperate situations which crush the spectator in ordinary life somehow become a promise that one can go on living. One has only to… recognise defeat and one is with it all.”[xvii]
Fanfiction, or the Possibility of Eluding Capital
The culture industry, then, is a seemingly inescapable system. It accounts for and defends itself against subversive desires by reintegrating them, with the only motivator being the accumulation of capital. The ideology of the culture industry relies on the predictable exhaustion of the consumer to reinforce this dominance. Despite this, forms of media distribution and spaces for communities to develop (particularly the internet) have emerged since Adorno and Horkheimer’s time. This has allowed for the propagation of an intense subculture of fandom, which presents the possibility of generating art that cannot be reintegrated into the whole.
Fandom, a subculture that repurposes existing media and reinvents or reimagines aspects of that media, is believed to have emerged in the 60’s and 70’s following the popularity of science fiction show ‘Star Trek.’[xviii] Fan-art[xix] is an example of what media scholar Henry Jenkins calls ‘participatory culture,’ in which the consumer is actively engaging with the media they consume: analysing details, filling gaps in plotlines or character arcs, and reimagining potential scenarios as they see fit.[xx] Jenkins writes, “Fandom originates, at least in part, as a response to the relative powerlessness of the consumer in relation to powerful institutions of cultural production and circulation.”[xxi] I will present two key arguments for why fan-art presents a potential for at least a partial redemption of art from the culture industry.
Firstly, Adorno and Horkheimer present a totalising vision in which all art produced under capitalism is necessarily “geared to profit-making, controlled by centralised interlocking corporations, and staffed with marketing and financial experts.”[xxii] In the case of fanfiction however, copyright law prevents such art from being profitable. Jenkins suggests: “Fan art as well stands as a stark contrast to the self-interested motivations of mainstream cultural production… Fandom generates systems of distribution that reject profit and broaden access to its creative works.”[xxiii] The culture industry relies on systems of reintegration to preserve its domination over both culture and consumers. Since copyright law prevents fanfiction authors from profiting from their work, fan works are (for the most part) denied any kind of reintegration into the culture industry and mainstream media. Exceptions to this rule exist: ‘50 Shades of Grey’ began as a ‘Twilight’ fanfiction, though its entry into the culture industry left it unrecognisable as a work of fan-art. The copyright laws which protect the culture industry essentially serve as a blockade to assimilation, challenging Adorno and Horkheimer’s claim that “Once his [the artist’s] particular brand of deviation from the norm has been noted by the industry, he belongs to it…”[xxiv] This is not to argue that fan-work serves as a politically liberating force. Fandom simply exists in tension with mass media and culture, occupying a unique position which enables avenues for the creation and reclamation of cultural products separate from the profit-driven homogenisation of the culture industry.
Secondly, Adorno and Horkheimer’s argument relies on the presupposition that audiences are passive in their consumption, as Emma Keltie states: “The hierarchical model produced by Adorno and Horkheimer saw audiences as merely consumers of the products and media texts provided by the culture industry thesis.”[xxv] This passivity is at odds with the participatory consumption of media practised by fandom creators. Fan-art is truly mass media, made for fans by fans, as Jenkins explains: “Fandom recognizes no clear-cut line between artists and consumers; all fans… may be able to make a contribution, however modest, to the cultural wealth of the larger community.”[xxvi] Jenkins argues that “fan writers do not so much reproduce the primary text as they rework and rewrite it…”[xxvii] This is contrary to the passive consumption necessitated by the culture industry. The passivity of the consumer is implicit throughout Adorno and Horkheimer’s essay. For example: “The stronger the positions of the culture industry become, the more summarily it can deal with consumers’ needs…”[xxviii] The use of the word ‘consumer’ implicates that individuals are not active participants but passive receivers of media. Thus, the culture industry cannot account for a subculture that actively creates meaning.
This generative capacity exists not despite, but because of the vacuousness of media under capitalism. Fan-made content doesn’t aspire towards any ‘high art’ recognition, nor does it try to achieve the kind of success dictated by the culture industry— the artistic quality of fan-made work is certainly open to criticism. However, the importance of fan art[xxix] rests on its specific mode of production: amateur, self-published, written for and by a certain fanatic audience. Fan art carves out its own space from the source material of the culture industry (Harry Potter, Twilight, Marvel, etc.) and recontextualises the characters and tropes in a space adjacent to mass culture. It is not the purpose of fanfiction to overtly challenge the dominance of the culture industry: rather, it is to foster an intense subculture of artists and consumers who, through their participatory engagement with media, radically circumvent the traditional capitalist mode of production. Through this process, fan fiction becomes truly mass media: free, actively consuming and creating, and disavowing of the metrics of success dictated by the culture industry. Fandom takes the products of the culture industry not as ends in themselves, but as raw material, a beginning from which to move however timidly or imperfectly towards the new. Fanfiction requires, at least to begin with, the culture industry and its products: as Jenkins argues, “For the fan… the moment of reception is often also the moment of enunciation… Making meanings involves sharing, enunciating, and debating meanings. For the fan, watching the series is the beginning, not the end, of the process of media consumption.”[xxx]
This tension between fan culture and the culture industry is what makes some retrieval of cultural products from a mindless, profit-driven industry possible. Fandom can never be subsumed into the culture industry because of its inability to accumulate profit, and its active engagement with the products of the industry. It does, however, provide an avenue for the creation of meaning adjacent to the production line of the culture industry. I do not mean to argue that fandom culture will never become mainstream, nor will it ever provide a direct challenge to the dominance of the culture industry. Fanfiction is, however, deeply hopeful, insofar as it engages with the possibility of subverting the ideology of the culture industry. The existence of fanfiction proves that there is a desire in the masses to create meaning where there was none, for motives other than profit. Fanfiction is, fundamentally, a hopeful demonstration of emancipatory potential in the face of the hopeless subsumption of the culture industry.
Reilly studies creative writing, philosophy, and art history at UQ. She’s interested in how these disciplines interact and would like to further investigate the fan community and its intersections with philosophy as an understudied area. She is primarily focused on continental philosophy and has a keen interest in the works of Héléne Cixous, Julia Kristeva, and Luce Irigaray.
ENDNOTES
[i] Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” in Dialectic of Enlightenment, Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (London: Verso, 2016), 123.
[ii] Lambert Zuidervaart, “Theodor W Adorno,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, June 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/adorno/.
[iii] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 121.
[iv] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 121.
[v] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 123.
[vi] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 131.
[vii] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 135.
[viii] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 132.
[ix] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 123.
[x] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 133.
[xi] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 143.
[xii] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 151.
[xiii] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 137.
[xiv] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 143.
[xv] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 152.
[xvi] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 151.
[xvii] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 152-153.
[xviii] Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 13.
[xix] Referring not only to visual art, but to fan-made literature, music, games, video, etc.
[xx] Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 21.
[xxi] Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 296.
[xxii] Deborah Cook, The Culture Industry Revisited (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996), 10.
[xxiii] Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 279.
[xxiv] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 132.
[xxv] Emma Keltie, The Culture Industry and Participatory Audiences (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), 2.
[xxvi] Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 279-280.
[xxvii] Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 162.
[xxviii] Adorno and Horkheimer, “The Culture Industry,” 144.
[xxix] Referring here to all art created by fans, including visual art, literature, music, etc.
[xxx] Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 277-278.
WORKS CITED
Adorno, Theodor, and Max Horkheimer. “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception.” In Dialectic of Enlightenment, by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, 120-167. London: Verso, 2016.
Cook, Deborah. The Culture Industry Revisited. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 1996.
Jenkins, Henry. Textual Poachers: Television Fans and Participatory Culture. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013.
Emma Keltie. The Culture Industry and Participatory Audiences. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.
Zuidervaart, Lambert. “Theodor W Adorno.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. June 2023. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/adorno/.
Featured photo by Susanna Marsiglia on Unsplash
EXORDIUM 